PORPHYRY

Tyre, the name of which means 'rock', was the most famous city of Phoenicia. Isolated on a miniscule island until
Alexander the Great constructed a mole connecting it with its suburbs on the Phoenician coast, Tyre was a maritime centre of craft and trade and also
of religion. Its multi-storeyed houses – loftier than any found in Rome – were built around the great temple of Melquarth, 'the Lord of the City',
Ba'al in his celestial and marine aspects. Hellenistic and Semitic cultures blended in a lively profusion of modes, manners and customs as Egyptians,
Assyrians, Persians, Greeks and Romans successively dominated the area. They were fascinated with the mysterious Tyrian purple, the dye which
permanently tinted the hands of those who worked in it and marked its wearers as kings. These peoples brought their gods to Tyre – Apollo and Astarte,
Jehovah and Adonis, Mithra and Cybele – where remnants of their worship continued into the twentieth century. Prized, well fortified by nature and
fierce in self-defence, Tyre was a focus of geopolitical attention until the end of the Crusades.

Porphyry was born in Tyre about 232 A. D. and given the name Malchus, which means 'king' in the Semitic languages of
the area. Nothing is known of his early life or descent, though ancient writers generally supposed that he was Syrian. As he grew up, he could easily
have been exposed to the Pythagorean-Platonic tradition, disciples of which flourished throughout coastal Asia Minor. While still a young man he found
his way to Athens, took the Greek name Basileus – a translation of his Phoenician original – and studied under Longinus, who persuaded him to settle on
the name Porphyrius, the Greek designation for Tyrian purple. Though Longinus was more a man of letters than a philosopher, he cultivated the natural
philosophic temperament of his disciple and imparted breadth of learning, respect for philosophical reasoning and lucidity in written expression.
Porphyry's penetrating and synthesizing intellect flourished in the Athenian atmosphere vibrant with reminiscences of the early age of philosophical
and literary giants. Yet he found the tradition of the later Academy stale and unoriginal, exegetical studies of the texts having obscured the Platonic
injunction to live the philosophical life in daily practice. The teaching of Diotima, the significance of the Allegory of the Cave and the Myth of Er
had been forgotten.

Porphyry visited Rome when he was thirty years old and there encountered disciples of the school of Plotinus, notably
the devoted Amelius of Tuscany. The genius of Plotinus and his impeccable philosophical character fired Porphyry from the first, but his probing
honesty led him to question the Plotinian teachings on several points. Contrary to the prevalent interpretations of Platonic doctrine, Plotinus held
that the One is above Being and not, as conventionally thought, identical with it. Further, this view suggested that Intellect or Divine Thought - the
second Hypostasis of Plotinus – is in some sense identical with its objects. Porphyry boldly yet respectfully set forth his objections before Plotinus
himself. Rather than dismiss Porphyry as an upstart, Plotinus recognized Porphyry's philosophical potential and invited Amelius, already on friendly
terms with Porphyry, to explain the teachings carefully. After considerable internal struggle Porphyry came to the view that the One – Agathon
– is above both Being and Becoming, a mystery not to be known in itself but presented to Divine Mind as the First Hypostasis. From that abstract
standpoint, the world of manifest existence is a reflection of the mystery. Intellect or Divine Mind and its objects may be identified with each other
as reflections of the same order. In an emanative universe of hierarchical reflections, the arena of discourse, and therefore of thought, determines
its subject as paradigmatically real, with dependent levels defined as illusory reflections of the paradigm. But when confronted with That which cannot
be known, all arenas of discourse are seen as relative to one another, and illusory in relation to It. Porphyry wrote a detailed recantation of his
former views, read it out to Plotinus and was admitted to the school.

Plotinus did not write a systematic account of his philosophy. When urgent and persistent questions arose in his
meetings with small groups of followers, he would compose a response to the problem and allow it to be circulated privately amongst his closest
disciples. By the time Plotinus reached fifty-nine, when Porphyry became his disciple, twenty-one of these treatises were extant. Porphyry and Amelius
encouraged Plotinus to set his thoughts on paper, and Porphyry undertook the task of editing them. During the next six years Plotinus wrote another
twenty-four treatises on a wide variety of subjects – the unity of the transcendent One, potentiality and actuality, the soul, the power of seeing,
numbers, happiness, eternity and time, memory and the kinds of being. Porphyry devoted himself to understanding his master's thought and how his
intellect approached every issue. Plotinus repeatedly achieved union with the One in ecstatic meditation, and Porphyry, striving to do the same, twice
followed his master's path out of the world of manifestation into the unspeakable realm beyond the pairs of opposites.

Like all those who follow the spiritual path, Porphyry found himself at the edge of the abyss of meaninglessness, where
the world appears as an intolerable burden and the realm of spirit remains empty. One evening Porphyry was on the verge of suicide when suddenly,
Plotinus, divining his wretched condition, came to him and instructed him to go to Sicily for a rest. Away from the intense orbit of Plotinus, Porphyry
regained resolve and perspective, and Plotinus continued instructions by sending nine additional treatises to him. The physical separation was
accompanied by a spiritual reunion with the mind and heart of the teacher, though Porphyry sorely regretted being absent when Plotinus died.

Having been charged by Plotinus with editing the treatises for dissemination and use, Porphyry returned to Rome,
assumed direction of the school and organized his master's thoughts into the magnificent Enneads. He became a teacher in his own right, giving
focus to the neo-Platonic movement in his Sententiae, composing a brilliant history of philosophy which became the textbook of philosophical
studies for two centuries, questioning the practices of divination in the Letter to Anebo, outlining the significance of philosophical
allegory in De Antro Nympharum and enjoining the renunciation of meat-eating and animal sacrifices in De Abstinentia. His lengthy
refutation of Christian claims to final truth and doctrinal perfection was sufficiently powerful to draw the full fury of the developing church. This
work was publicly burnt by Constantine and later by Theodosius, though Constantine wrote that it was not a work against religion but rather against the
teachings of the entrenched establishment. Except for the lives of Pythagoras and Plotinus, his history of philosophy suffered the same fate. His
Isagoge, a commentary on Aristotle's Categories, divorced logic from metaphysics, thus permitting it to be investigated even during
the darkest days of religious dogmatism, and raised the questions which launched the prolonged philosophical debate on 'the problem of universals'.

Late in life a friend of his died, leaving the philosopher Marcella a widow with many young children. Porphyry wrote to
her, encouraging her devotion to philosophy, and, renouncing his own preference for an unmarried life, subsequently wed her so that she would be
protected and her children might be raised in the Pythagorean manner. In this he imitated the Essenes, whom he admired and wrote about, declaring "They
despise wedlock, but receiving the children of other persons, and instructing them in disciplines while they are yet of a tender age, they consider
them as their kindred and form them to their own manners." Porphyry's own childhood, life-experiences and philosophical reflections convinced him that
many classes of visible and invisible beings filled the universe, but he cautioned against superstition, demonolatry and thaumaturgy. Not until
Iamblichus showed him that the root of ancient Egyptian and Chaldean esotericism was true theurgy, or spiritual transformation, was he reconciled to
the magical side of neo-Platonism. By the end of his life, about 306 A.D., Porphyry had so secured the basis of the Plotinian tradition that Eunapius
could write, near the end of the fourth century, that Plotinus was more widely disseminated amongst educated citizens than Plato himself. Plotinus was
revered for the teaching, while Porphyry received credit for making his teacher's thought clear, "as if some Hermaic chain had been let down to men
During his life and after his death, Christian writers were his implacable enemies, and yet the quality of his thought and the tenor of his life called
forth their praise. To Augustine of Hippo he was "the noble philosopher"; to Eusebius, "the wonderful theologian" and "the great prophet"; and to
Simplicius, "the most learned of philosophers".

Porphyry's philosophical thought evinces the central ethical concern illustrated in his life. In the
Sententiae, Porphyry held that the three Hypostases – the One, Intellect or Divine Mind, and Soul – are not subject to location or specific
conditions. Wholly intelligible Being is neither here nor there. The addition of location or relation is in truth a deprivation of Being. When made a
part of the consciousness of the individual, self-knowledge is lost, the person is alienated from his own being and delusion and confusion result.
Being can be diminished, however, only in appearance, and the true philosophical life is the sustained effort to banish the illusion of separateness
from the One, the essential Self. Union with the One, as harmony with Its reflected activity through ethical thought and action, then as self-awareness
and full self-knowledge and ultimately as transcendent realization, is possible through self-discipline. The virtues are powers of the enslaved soul
summoned to cut through the web of illusion which binds it. Virtues are thus of different kinds and serve different ends on the journey back to one's
own true nature. Political or civic virtues nurture moderation and a freedom from excessive attachment to the body, the most concrete
expression of the metaphysically false sense of separateness. Purificatory or cathartic virtues free the soul from all attachment, allowing it
to turn naturally towards the Good which is also its own good. Contemplative or theoretic virtues are the awakening intellectual energies of
the soul and paradigmatic or archetypal virtues are those of the Divine Mind or Intellect, which the individual intellect looks to as models.
Those who are serious about the philosophical life and the spiritual promise it holds will be most concerned with the virtues of purification, for if
cultivated in this life, all the rest will follow in some existence. Since illusion arises when properties of corporeal Becoming are ascribed to
incorporeal Being, purification is the condition for self-knowledge.

We must therefore divest ourselves of our manifold garments, both of this visible and fleshly vestment, and of
those with which we are internally clothed, and which are proximate to our cutaneous habiliments; and we must enter the stadium naked and unclothed,
striving for the Olympia of the soul.

Failure to cultivate the virtues can result in further diminution of one's being, allegorically compared to
reincarnation in symbolically suitable animal forms. Porphyry, however, is careful to point out that while there is a profound similarity between the
souls of human beings and those of animals – both are connected with the Third Hypostasis – human souls are intellectually awakened and cannot regress
to an animal condition.

The man, however, who is cautious, and is suspicious of the enchantments of nature, who has surveyed the
essential properties of body, and knows that it was adapted as an instrument to the powers of the soul, will also know how readily passion is
prepared to accord with the body, whether we are willing or not, when anything external strikes it, and the pulsation at length arrives at
perception. For perception is, as it were, an answer to that which causes the perception. But the soul cannot answer unless she wholly converts
herself to the sound, and transfers her animadversive eye to the pulsation. In short, the irrational part not being able to judge to what extent,
how, whence, and what thing ought to be the object of attention, but of itself being inconsiderate, like horses without a charioteer; whither it
verges downward, thither it is borne along, without any power of governing itself in things external. Nor does it know the fit time or the measure of
the food which should be taken, unless the eye of the charioteer is attentive to it, which regulates and governs the motions of irrationality, this
part of the soul being essentially blind. But he who takes away from reason its dominion over the irrational part and permits it to be borne along,
conformably to its proper nature: such a one, yielding to desire and anger, will suffer them to proceed to whatever extent they please. On the
contrary, the worthy man will so act that his deeds may be conformable to presiding reason, even in the energies of the irrational part.

In De Antro Nympharum – the Cave of the Nymphs – Porphyry taught that all authentic myths, such as Homer's
account of the Grotto of the Nymphs at Ithaca, are rich allegorical deposits of ancient wisdom identical with true philosophy. Proper interpretation
unveils the meaning inherent in the myth and does not add to it, for myth intimates eternal verities within the framework of local space and time. Myth
can avoid the difficulty of expressing in the language of concrete existence the truths of an incorporeal realm. Just as sleep must be spoken of in the
language of waking life but can be known only through sleep, so the insight of ecstatic meditation can be expressed only in a language of ordinary
sensible and intellectual experience, but it can be known only through meditation itself. Myth builds a bridge of understanding between these realms
without misleading the learner through discursive language.

When Firmus Castricius, a disciple of Plotinus and companion of Porphyry, abandoned his vegetarian diet, Porphyry
composed the De Abstinentia to guide him back to abstinence from all animal slaughter. Recalling the moral reforms of Apollonius of Tyana and
Plotinus, Porphyry argued that while a vegetarian diet might be unsuitable for some constitutions, it was critical to one on the spiritual path to
self-knowledge because the vital nature and psychic energy of the animal consumed affects the whole nature of the eater. Abstinence out of respect for
animal life inclines one towards a greater respect for human life, and one must recognize that the inferiority of the thinking and feeling powers of
animals does not imply their total absence. As Carneades held, the natural end of each being must be of profit to that being and not some other. A
vegetarian regime both exemplifies and supports the cultivation of the purificatory virtues and imitates the original "golden race" of spiritually
awake men and women.

For to whom is it not manifest that justice is increased through abstinence? For he who abstains from
everything animated, though he may abstain from such animals as do not contribute to the benefit of society, will be much more careful not to injure
those of his own species.

Animal sacrifice to the gods was used in Porphyry's day to justify meat-eating. Like Apollonius, Porphyry condemns the
custom by noting that the most ancient sacrifices were of fruits, cakes and incense, and he indicates the nature of philosophical sacrifice: "To the
gods, indeed, the most excellent offering is a pure intellect and tranquil soul."

From the most practical matters to the most abstract reasoning, Porphyry's teachings resound with the tones of
compassion and ethical awareness. For him separation from the One is an unnecessary and unnatural, if understandable, condition which can be healed
only through noble conceptions and bold applications in strict self-discipline and compassionate self-awareness.

He advocated a progressive transcendence of all attachments.

For we resemble those who enter into, or depart from a foreign region, not only because we are banished from
our intimate associates, but in consequence of dwelling in a foreign land, we are filled with barbaric passions, and manners, and legal institutes,
and to all these have a great propensity. Hence, he who wishes to return to his proper kindred and associates should not only with alacrity begin the
journey, but, in order that he may be properly received, should meditate how he may divest himself of everything of a foreign nature which he has
assumed, and should recall to his memory such things as he has forgotten, and without which he cannot be admitted by his kindred and friends. After
the same manner, also, it is necessary, if we intend to return to things which are truly our own, that we should divest ourselves of everything of a
mortal nature which we have assumed, together with an adhering affection towards it, and which is the cause of our descent; and that we should excite
our recollection of that blessed and eternal essence, and should hasten our return to the nature which is without colour and without quality,
earnestly endeavouring to accomplish two things; one, that we may cast aside everything material and mortal; but the other, that we may properly
return, and be again conversant with our true kindred, ascending to them in a way contrary to that in which we descended hither.

Of the sage of self-centered heart, at rest and free from attachment to desires, the simile is recorded,
"as a lamp which is sheltered from the wind flickereth not".